Vera Fire Chief Putting Out Grass Fire While Own House Burns

Green Country's warm and windy conditions mean we're at a higher risk of wildfires right now.

Many rural firefighters are on edge. Volunteer firefighters were kept busy with a wildfire near Vera in Washington County.

While there, the situation went from bad to even worse, when crews got the call that the fire chiefs' house was also burning.

The dry conditions and windy weather are not a good combination from a rural firefighters' perspective.

Owens And Company volunteer firefighters spent Sunday evening putting out a fire east of Vera.

"By the time we got out there, it was moving pretty good," said Chief Todd Owens, Owens And Company.

Crews saved several structures and got the fire out. But since it was likely caused by a driver carelessly throwing out a cigarette - meaning it didn't have to happen - that's frustrating.

"It's putting the firefighters' lives at risk," Owens said. "It's putting the equipment at risk, and more importantly we're having so many grass fires this year, that the financial burden on the departments has been so heavy this year."

Preventable fires often tie up manpower and equipment. That's what happened in Vera.

"Then they paged us out and said we had another structure fire. It went right over me that it was my house," Owens said.

"And then one of the other trucks hollered and said ‘Chief that's your house.'"

Instead of trucks being at the station, less than two blocks away from Chief Todd Owens' home, they were two miles away on the brush fire.

"We could have got the trucks here quicker, we wouldn't have had as much damage," he said. "But we had all the units out on that wild land fire you know, fighting it."

Instead, the flames had more time to spread.

"It just looked like Tiki torches burning out of the top of the house," said Chief Todd Owens of the Owens And Company Fire Department.

Owens' home, the house he grew up in, has significant smoke, water and fire damage.

"It's tough. You know what your clients go through every day when you're doing this job. So you get a different outlook on the job when you're on this side of the coin," Owens said.

Owens understands fires sometimes just happen. His house fire will be hard to overcome.

But, it's the fires that don't have to happen that are sometimes the hardest to understand.

Owens thinks he'll be able to save a lot of personal items.

He has insurance and is waiting now to hear from an adjustor. There's no word yet on the cause of the fire.